Ethical behaviour: Learning from business to educate the students

Following on from the disasters of the "Dot Con" era, there have been recent collapses of major corporations both in the United States and in Australia. These corporate collapses undermine investor confidence in the market, as well as destroying incomes and wealth. Ethical failure is a significant factor behind some of these corporate failures. This paper provides a discussion of what can be learnt from the business community about ethics in the workplace, and how these findings can be taught to students of business and economics. Corporations ought to expect that students are aware of the importance of ethical values and ethical reputations to firms. Results from the recent US Survey of Business Ethics will be discussed, together with Australia's CLERP 9 governance policy.